33 The scribes and the Pharisees said to Jesus, “Why do John’s disciples often fast and pray, likewise also the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink?”

34 He said to them, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast, while the bridegroom is with them? 35 But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them. Then they will fast in those days.” 36 He also told a parable to them. “No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old garment, or else he will tear the new, and also the piece from the new will not match the old. 37 No one puts new wine into old wine skins, or else the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. 38 But new wine must be put into fresh wine skins, and both are preserved. 39 No man having drunk old wine immediately desires new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’”

Luke 5:33-39 - World English Bible

In Luke 5, the scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus about the lack of spiritual practices among his followers. Both disciples of the Pharisees and the Baptist fasted and prayed beyond that required by the Law for two reasons: atoning for past sins of the nation and anticipating the future coming Kingdom. Typically, righteous Jews would fast on Mondays and Thursdays; prayers would accompany the practice to focus the participant on the reasons for penitence (not unlike the Catholic Lenten practices).

So, why didn't the disciples fast, along with the requested prayers? There were implicit and explicit reasons. Implicitly, the followers of Jesus came from the countryside, where they practiced a more informal, less regulated form of Judaism advanced by the urban Pharisees; so this controversy was a matter of competing visions about living the faith on a day-by-day basis. Explicitly, the Lord pointed to his presence (the parable of the bridegroom) and his message (the parable of the wine and the wine skins) as the reasons to set aside the fast. He embodied the Kingdom; there was no reason to fast in the presence of God (like revilers at a wedding feast). His message, the Good News, announced the immanence of the Kingdom; why would anyone mourn the sins of the past (old wine) when God was so close (new wine in new wine skins)? One could answer two rhetorical questions in the negative, however, if his religious practice depended upon habit and familiarity (preferring the old wine).

Jesus raised the controversy about fasting beyond that of spiritual practice to one of spiritual vision. Did his opponents really see who stood before them and the power of the message he proclaimed?

Do we?

What is the status of your spiritual life today? Do your spiritual practices measure up to your faith expectations?